Editorial: Access to crime scene photos critical to government accountability

Jacquelyn and Kenneth Johnson, center left and right, parents of Kendrick Johnson, the south Georgia teenager found dead inside a rolled-up wrestling mat in his school, make their way down the steps of the Lowndes County Judicial Complex with their attorneys C.B. King, left, and Benjamin Crump, to call for the release of school surveillance videos in relation to Johnson's death, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2013, in Valdosta, Ga. An autopsy report obtained by CNN through a freedom of information request has paved the way for a potential homicide investigation. (AP Photo/The Valdosta Daily Times, Adam Floyd)

Only one other member of the state House of Represenatatives and two senators had joined Tercyak in voting against a bill in June that limited the public’s access to information collected in homicide investigations,

But the New Britain Democrat was resolute.

“Some principles are always there, “ he said, according to an account in the Connecticut Mirror. “And the reason people can trust our government and police departments is because we don’t have secrets.”

Tercyak was right. So were Rep. Stephen Dargan of West Haven, Sen. Edward Meyer of Guilford and Sen. Anthony Musto of Trumbull.

The overwhelming majority of the state legislature was wrong, as was Gov. Dannel P. Mallloy, who signed the bill into law in the final days of the legislative session.

It’s important to remember Tercyak’s words as a task force considers what recommendations it makes to the legislature on the balance between victim privacy and government accountability.

The creation of the Task Force on Victim Privacy and the Public’s Right to Know — and the possibility that it will recommend a repeal or scaling back of the law — was one of the few good things that came out of an otherwise terrible piece of legislation.

The bill was written in response to concerns of the families of victims in last year’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings that photographs and videos of the victims’ bodies would be published on TV, in newspapers or on the Internet.

It was crafted in secret and rushed to the floor without the benefit of pubic hearings that might have prevented it from passing in the form in which it passed.

We share the legislature’s deep sympathy for the victims’ families, and for the families of all homicide victims. But as Tercyak noted after the vote, the bill disregards a principle at the foundation of democracy.

There are ample examples of the availability of crime scene images serving the public good, one of which was highlighted in testimoney before the task force last week by Chris VanDeHoef, president of the Connecticut Daily Newspapers Association.

VanDeHoef pointed to the death of Kendrick Johnson, a 17-year-old high school athlete in Georgia. An initial autopsy report ruled that Johnson died of positional asphyxia after falling into a rolled-up gym mat while trying to retrieve a sneaker.

That was before CNN used a Freedom of Information request to an autopsy report containing a 15-minute video and nearly 700 photos taken by sheriff’s investigators. CNN showed the report to a former FBI agent who told the network the photos showed evidence of blunt force trauma.

Federal prosecutors are now reviewing the images to see if they warrant a homicide investigation.

There are countless other examples of information obtained through Freedom of Information requests serving the public good and holding government officials accountable.

It’s also important to note that, as a host of Freedom of Information advocates have pointed out, the bill provides a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

Klau wrote that he couldn’t find a single instance in history in which graphic photos of victims were obtained through a FOI request and published by a Connecticut media outlet.

As Klau notes, photos of the members of the Petit family killed in their Cheshire home in 2007 are pursuant to FOI requests. But none has been published online, and the only crime scene photos available online are those that were introduced as evidence in Steven Hayes’ and Joshua Komisarjevsky’s trials.

“If you don’t want trial exhibits to appear in newspapers or on the Internet, the ‘problem’ is not the FOIA,” Klau wrote. “It is the First Amendment.”